Engadget RSS Feedhttp://www.engadget.com
Engadgethttp://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gifEngadgethttp://www.engadget.com
en-usCopyright 2015 AOL Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/28/pebble-sets-a-new-record-net-neutrality-passes/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget&ncid=rss_semi
http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/28/pebble-sets-a-new-record-net-neutrality-passes/http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/28/pebble-sets-a-new-record-net-neutrality-passes/?utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget#comments

Pebble beats its own record, Motorola confirms what we already knew about the Moto E and Facebook takes a break from the sillier aspects of its site to get serious about mental health. Basically, we've got everything you need to know from this past week in one neat little package. Won't you catch up with us?

In today's news, the FCC approved its net neutrality plan, a "digital brothel" lets people have sex through the internet and Pebble smashes its own crowdfunding records. Read about all the top stories in today's Daily Roundup.

Facebook already has a range of gender options for those who don't fit neatly into male/female categories, but it just took that accommodation one step further. Much like Google, Facebook now lets you specify any gender you want -- you're not limited to the social network's definitions. As before, you can choose who sees that sexuality in case some of your visitors are less tolerant than others. The move won't please those upset with Facebook's real name policy, which sometimes makes people use names that are out of sync with their sexual identities, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

With over a billion users, Facebook plays an important role in keeping people connected. It serves as a place to share good news, but also provides a platform for users to request support from their digital peers. The company is keenly aware that it can assist users when there is a cry for help, which is why it rolled out a (lengthy) way to flag suicidal content back in 2011. Now, it's taking that one step further by introducing new tools to boost its suicide prevention efforts.

Well, here's a nice Facebook feature for the more fun-loving users: the social network now lets you add stickers to photos before you even post them from an iPhone or an Android device. The social network launched a separate sticker app in December, but that one's only for pictures to be sent through Messenger. Also, its built-in stickers were only for use in private messages and the comments section, prompting anyone who wanted cute accoutrements in their pictures to turn to third-party apps. Now, you'll see a small icon at the bottom of each uploaded image, which you can click to see all the stickers you can use. These graphics can be resized, rotated, moved to another location -- or just straight up deleted if you change your mind. Sure, go on and roll your eyes at the news, but we promise you teens and tweens will eat this up: cue the rise of super-kawaii, sticker-ridden Facebook selfies.

Facebook's head of Product, Chris Cox, says the company is already working on making versions of its apps expressly for virtual reality. The explanation, during an interview at CodeMedia, wasn't detailed but touched on the idea of being able to share your own environment with other users - a different way of sharing. "You realize when you're in it, that you're looking at the future, and it's going to be awesome. When you're in Facebook, you're just sending around these bits of experience - a photo, a video, a thought," added Cox. Making good use of that Oculus VR purchase, the product head reminded the audience that VR apps were still a while away, if only due to the fact that headsets are still nascent. Tiny user numbers will be another challenge before Facebook VR gets, literally, in your face.

Despite policy changes following its dispute with drag queens, Facebook is still banning individuals who run afoul of its "real name" policy. It recently suspended Native American Dana Lone Hill and wouldn't reinstate her even after she provided the requested ID. It was only after the media got wind of it that she was restored, prompting her to write "Katy Perry's Left Shark... has a Facebook page and we have to prove who we are." The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) wrote in response that "no one should have to rely on media attention to get Facebook to deal with its broken name policy."

What's happening in the tech world today? Check out our updated Engadget buyer's guide to find the latest recommendations on laptops and tablets, then read about placing sports bets with Cortana and learn about Dell's latest portables. All that and more can be found below.

You can't take your Facebook friends with you to the afterlife, but at least you can now prevent your snarky comments about Drag Race serving as a poor memorial. The social network has announced that users will be able to designate a legacy contact that can maintain their accounts after they have died. According to the Wall Street Journal, a new group of options will let you pick a digital executor to run your page as a memorial, or elect to have your profile deleted once it's proven that you've passed away.

Posting "revenge porn" in England and Wales is becoming a criminal offense. It's thanks to an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, which was passed last year by the House of Lords and due to receive Royal Assent later today. Anyone found guilty of distributing explicit images to force victims into sexual activity or to humiliate them will now face up to two years in prison. It's designed to cover photos and videos that are shared without permission both on and offline, including those posted to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and other social networks.

Malware frequently strikes multiple targets, but online services rarely do a great job of warning each other about related threats; your data could be at risk simply because your favorite social network didn't get a heads-up in time. Facebook is clearly sick and tired of this problem, as it just launched a hub that's designed to mount a coordinated defense. Its new ThreatExchange web platform lets services both look up existing threat info and share their discoveries with as many sites as they see fit. If Facebook reels under a botnet attack, it can let others know what to do to protect themselves.

Facebook is clearly extra-serious about its efforts to beat internet sale sites at their own game through groups. As part of an update rolling out over the months ahead, the social network's For Sale Groups will let you tap a simple Sell button to hawk your wares -- from there, you'll just have to write a description and set basic details like the pick-up location and price. You'll also have an easy way to mark items as sold, or to sift through your history if you don't remember whether or not you sold that table lamp. Are these enough to make you ditch Craigslist? Not necessarily, but you'll at least have more reasons to stick with Facebook's For Sale Groups if you're an early user.

Less than a month after Facebook launched its Internet.org initiative to give folks in Colombia free web access, the company is expanding its efforts to India. Reliance Communications subscribers in six states (Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra', Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and Telangana) can browse things like news, weather, government info and job listings with the Internet.org Android app. What's more, the bulk of the options are available in seven languages: English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi. If you'll recall, the Internet.org app is also available in Kenya and Zambia, connecting users in those areas with basic services and local info, too.

If canvassers, flyers and TV debates weren't enough, Facebook is going to play its part in getting Brits to vote in this year's General Election. For tomorrow only, the social network will host the "largest ever voter registration campaign," its first in the UK, prompting eligible (read: adult) users to register to vote. Facebook is working with the Electoral Commission to place reminders in eligible users' Newsfeeds and will also add a new "Life Event" to profiles that will tell friends and family that they've registered.

The thinking behind this is clear: Facebook welcomes 35 million people every month, which is more than the number of people who voted in the 2010 General Election, when 29 million votes were recorded. By motivating Facebook-loving adults, the Election Commission hopes it can spur voter turnouts or even just remind people that it's now possible to register to vote online. If you're one of millions who use Facebook's official mobile apps, expect to see the following notice in your Newsfeed tomorrow:

When Vine introduced loop counts, it instantly replaced likes and shares to become the default metric to gauge the popularity of a video. Facebook has dabbled with a similar technique for auto-play videos in users' mobile Newsfeeds, but only now has it appeared on its other popular social network, Instagram. It comes in an update to the iOS app and across the web (expect Android to follow), ensuring that you'll automatically see your followers' 15 second (or less) videos over and over. Gone are pause buttons, replaced with the option to unmute videos that auto-play as you scroll down your feed.

We get it. It's been a busy week. Luckily, we're here to catch you up on the release date of the Apple Watch, VR headsets in Hollywood and all the other cool stuff you may have accidentally glossed over during five days on the daily grind.

If you've ever found yourself in a new restaurant or a trendy tourist spot, you might've looked up Yelp or Foursquare -- or, heaven forbid, used Google -- on your phone to find out where the best view is or whether or not you should order the shrimp. Now, you might not need to, as long as you have Facebook installed. That's because the company has just introduced something called "Place Tips," which, when enabled, essentially pops up relevant content about your location as long as you're there. Specifically, it'll show posts and photos about the place from your friends if they've also visited it. The feature sounds very similar to what Foursquare already does with its own Tips, but with a much more Facebook-centric bent.%Gallery-slideshow264174%

While Facebook made waves last year with its investment in Oculus and WhatsApp, it continues to make most of its money from just plain ol' Facebook. And, in particular, from mobile. In the last quarter of 2014, the social networking giant made $3.85 billion. Of that revenue, about $3.59 billion was from advertising, and ads from mobile accounted for a whopping 69 percent of that. That means Facebook now makes almost two-thirds of its money just from mobile advertising. Facebook also posted its overall numbers for 2014, where it made $12.47 billion for the year alone. It marks the first time the company's made over $10 billion in a single year.

The Super Bowl, the enormous advertising event that has some American Football between the commercial breaks, takes place this Sunday. If you're not a fan, then you may have wanted to find some respite inside your Facebook feed but, unfortunately, that avenue has been closed off this year. According to Reuters, the social network is hoping to muscle in on Twitter's real-time advertising turf by letting businesses target users depending on what messages they post.

If Super Bowl parties aren't your thing, Facebook has a new hub for the big game that aims to be the second screen spot for all your social media commentary. The folks in Menlo Park built a "Super Bowl experience" page that collects posts from your pals, real-time reactions, live scoring updates and more. By using "watching Super Bowl XLIX" in status updates, you can ensure that your hot takes are included in the stream. There's also postings from the NFL, NBC, both teams, players and other notable football minds to keep you up to speed on all the latest happenings. What's more, the page will pull in photos and videos from both the media and folks fortunate enough to be in Glendale. If you'll recall, Twitter developed similar real-time options in the past, and the 140-character network is likely to tip its hand on this year's tools in the days leading up to Beast Mode vs. Bellichick.

France is eying new laws that would make the likes of Facebook and Google accountable for hosting extremist messages. As Bloomberg tells it, the new talk is a direct response to terrorist attacks from earlier this month, and should the draft law pass, it'd make online entities "accomplices" for hosting hate speech or terrorism sites. French president François Hollande addressed the sharp increase in terrorist recruitment over the internet, saying:

"We must act at the European and international level to define a legal framework so that Internet platforms which manage social media be considered responsible and that sanctions can be taken."

Snowmageddon might not be all that fun those experiencing it on the East Coast, but it could well be affecting the rest of us too. Starting around 1am ET, Facebook and Instagram were both inaccessible, as well as apps that require FB credentials. Tinder, for exmaple, also went down in the process -- globally. (We saw problems accessing servers across the US, Europe and Asia.) We've also seen Hipchat and, er, AIM also knocked offline at the same time. Snow in the servers? Or maybe it was a DDoS attack? We don't know just yet. Facebook and Instagram have just come back after an hour. Interestingly, as TechCrunchnoted, Facebook's other app, WhatsApp went strong through out.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been hard at work connecting the world with not only his social network, but with basic internet access, too. In another step towards doing so in developing areas, the folks in Menlo Park are rolling out Facebook Lite: a version of its Android app that's meant to use less data and work well regardless of network speeds. In fact, it's specifically designed for browsing on 2G networks and in locales where connectivity is extremely limited. At less than 1MB, the software makes for a quick install to wrangle messaging, status updates, and other core features that Facebook users employ. According to TechCrunch, Facebook Lite is in the testing phase, and it's only available in Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Zimbabwe for the time being. However, the app requires Android 2.2, making it an option for most users -- even those wielding low-end devices.

Every six months, Facebook reveals how many times a nation requests that the site block content that's considered illegal. In the first half of 2014, for instance, Indialobbied for nearly 5,000 deletions, putting it well ahead of second-placed Turkey. Those positions may switch around, however, now that a Turkish court has ruled that unless the social network blocks a raft of pages that have been deemed as blasphemous, it'll ban Facebook outright.

One of the biggest complaints about smartwatches is their mediocre battery life. It sounds like the Apple Watch will be no different. In other news, internet activist Barrett Brown was sent to prison for five years and Russia showed off some "combat robots" that still have a lot to prove, fortunately. Catch up on today's top stories after the break.